She wanted to rush across the road and to deal with the doctor there and then, but it had an element of risk. Besides, she wanted to savour the moment, not just a quick thrust in and out. She wanted to enjoy the doctor’s death, to hear her plead for mercy.
Realising that killing the doctor was not possible at King’s Cross, Charlotte put her backup plan into action. She walked around the immediate area. A woman struggling with the key to the door of her house, her arms laden with shopping, her car on the street with its engine running. Charlotte jumped into the driver’s seat and took off. In the rear-view mirror, she could see the woman running down the street. The time was 2.20 p.m.
***
Larry Hill, in Sevenoaks, phoned Isaac as he was boarding the train at King’s Cross Station. ‘The local police in Sevenoaks identified her. Apparently, she was seen at the railway station earlier in the day. Also, she went by the name of Cathy Agnew here, and she was well known in the town.’
‘Which train did she catch?’ Isaac asked.
‘Early, 8.45 a.m.’
‘London?’ Isaac asked a rhetorical question.
‘Charing Cross. Unfortunately, she’s back up there with you.’
‘Don’t worry. This time we’re armed, and we’re sticking close to Dr Lake.’
‘She’s going to try again, you know that.’
‘We know it. I’ve stationed plain clothes in every carriage, and I’ll be with Sean O’Riordan and Dr Lake from here to Newcastle. After that, she’s Rory Hewitt’s responsibility.
‘There’s not much Wendy and I can do to help,’ Larry said.
‘Agreed. It’s probably best if you both get back to Challis Street and update DCI Caddick.’
‘I can’t say I like him much.’
‘That’s as may be, but he’s got the ear of the commissioner. If he’s to take over on a permanent basis, then you’d better stay on his side.’
‘What about DCS Goddard? Can he do something?’
‘If we catch Charlotte Hamilton, then anything is possible. Without a result, both the DCS and I are out and back on traffic duty.’
‘A bit dramatic.’
‘At the least demoted or transferred out to the suburbs.’
An announcement sounded in the station. The 4.15 p.m. to Newcastle is leaving in ten minutes from Platform 4. First stop Peterborough.
***
Charlotte, using the GPS installed in the BMW, made good time; twenty minutes after stealing the car she was on the A1 and heading to Peterborough. She had travelled on the train from Newcastle many times, and she knew it would arrive in Peterborough at 5 p.m. She had a greater distance to travel, and the train was quicker. The drive should take two hours; she had one hour and fifty minutes.
Exceeding the speed limit on more than one occasion, she made the trip in one hour and forty-two minutes. She left the car and rushed into the railway station. Quickly purchasing a ticket, she waited for the train from London to pull in. It arrived on time. Charlotte looked for familiar faces; she saw none.
As the train stopped, she climbed into the second carriage. She knew she would need to search the train. Her disguise was good, she knew that, but there was no way to fool the DCI again, as she had that night in Newcastle.
Charlotte sat patiently in her seat waiting for the train to leave. It was still some distance to Newcastle; she had time. Carefully she looked around the carriage; no one she knew. She felt safe.
In the fourth carriage, Isaac stood. He looked around, phoned his men up and down the train: nothing.
‘Looks like we’re okay,’ he said.
‘What happened to her?’ Sean asked. Both he and Isaac were sitting close to Gladys Lake on the trip from London: one on either side of her.
‘I won’t feel safe until I’m back in Newcastle,’ Dr Lake said.
‘We’ll be there soon enough,’ Isaac replied.
The train pulled out five minutes after it had arrived in Peterborough; its next destination, Doncaster.
Charlotte felt the knife in her bag. It would be dark outside before the train arrived in Newcastle; she decided to wait for another ninety minutes.
Sean went and purchased some food and drinks for his party of three; Charlotte ate nothing, not moving from her seat. She didn’t even complain when the child in the seat behind kept prodding the back of hers with his feet. She felt as if it was the end of a long journey.
The light outside the train started to dull, a sign of the impending night. Unwilling to wait any longer, she pulled up the collar of her coat, ensured the hat she wore concealed her face, and moved forward in the train. She walked through the first carriage, scanning left and right; attempting to move her eyes, not her face. There was no sign of her prey and her bodyguard.
She retraced her steps, back through the second carriage where she had been sitting; the third carriage was the same as the first. She took a seat.
A suspicious woman, at least to Charlotte stood at one end of the third carriage. Charlotte arose from her seat and moved into the fourth carriage. Immediately a message on Isaac’s phone: ‘She’s heading your way from the front of the train.’
Charlotte saw the woman on the phone, realised that she had been spotted. She lunged at the woman, caught her a glancing blow with her fist, causing the woman police officer to fall back and onto the floor. Charlotte moved forward, oblivious to the danger and the outcome. Sean was first to spot her. ‘Stop,’ he yelled.
Charlotte took no notice and kept moving forward. Sean went to draw his gun from its holster, but the train was full. A child was running up and down the corridor between him and the woman. Charlotte pushed the child to one side with her foot and continued forward, reaching Sean. He attempted to grab her. She pulled her knife out from her bag and slashed him badly across the face; he fell to one side, holding his face and attempting to control the bleeding.
Isaac was right behind Sean. He pulled his gun. ‘Stop, or I’ll shoot.’
‘Shoot then. I only want that bastard woman.’
The passengers on the train, confused about what was happening, craned their necks; one man stood up.
‘Sit down!’ Isaac shouted. ‘Police. This woman is extremely dangerous.’
In the confusion, Charlotte moved forward again. Gladys Lake stood up. ‘Charlotte, please stop, you need help.’
‘Not your help,’ Charlotte replied.
Isaac stood between Charlotte and her target. Some of the passengers were screaming in fear; some had hidden in their seats. A child cried.
‘Charlotte, stop,’ Isaac warned her again.
She ignored him. The distance between the two of them was no more than six feet. Isaac realised that he had no option but to pull the trigger. The bullet hit her in the left leg, causing her to falter. His police training had taught him to aim for the torso, but the risk of hitting people in the carriage was too high.
Undeterred and apparently impervious to the injury, she continued. Isaac pulled the trigger again, this time hitting the other leg. Charlotte, unable to continue, fell forward. ‘You bastard,’ she mumbled weakly, blood trickling down her legs.
As she fell, she raised the knife in front of her. She collapsed into Isaac’s arms, the knife piercing his shoulder. By this time, Sean, temporarily recovered, had taken control of the situation. One of the plain clothes had phoned for an ambulance to be at the next station, five miles away.
Charlotte, wounded but not fatally, was treated by Gladys Lake on the train as it headed to the station. Isaac, not so badly injured, although in a lot of pain, held a towel that he had been given by one of the passengers to his wound, the blood soaking it.
‘Don’t worry, Charlotte. I’ll look after you,’ Dr Lake said.
Charlotte, unable to speak, looked horrified.
Sean O’Riordan phoned DCS Goddard to update him, then DCI Caddick. After the situation had stabilised, he phoned Wendy and Larry. Sara Marshall, on hearing the news, phoned Charlotte’s father.
&n
bsp; ‘I’ll make sure she is treated well,’ the sad man replied.
Charlotte had killed seven people, including her own brother, yet her father still loved her.
The End
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ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
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Murder is a Tricky Business – A DCI Cook Thriller
A television actress is missing, and DCI Isaac Cook, the Senior Investigation Officer of the Murder Investigation Team at Challis Street Police Station in London, is searching for her.
Why has he been taken away from more important crimes to search for the woman? It’s not the first time she’s gone missing, so why does everyone assume she’s been murdered?
There’s a secret, that much is certain, but who knows it? The missing woman? The executive producer? His eavesdropping assistant? Or the actor who portrayed her fictional brother in the TV soap opera?
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Murder Without Reason – A DCI Cook Thriller
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The Haberman Virus
A remote and isolated village in the Hindu Kush mountain range in North Eastern Afghanistan is wiped out by a virus unlike any seen before.
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Hostage of Islam
Three are to die at the Mission in Nigeria; the pastor and his wife in a blazing chapel; another gunned down while trying to defend them from the Islamist fighters.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Phillip Strang was born in England in the late nineteen forties, during the post-war baby boom in England. He had a comfortable middle-class upbringing in a small town seventy miles west of London.
His childhood and formative years were a time of innocence. There were relatively few rules, and as a teenager he had complete freedom, thanks to a bicycle – a three-speed Raleigh – and a trusting community. It was in the days before mobile phones, the internet, terrorism and wanton violence. He was an avid reader of science fiction in his teenage years: Isaac Asimov and Frank Herbert, the masters of the genre. How much of what they and others mentioned has now become reality? Science fiction has now become science fact. Still an avid reader, the author now mainly reads thrillers.
In his early twenties, the author, with a degree in electronics engineering and desire to see the world, left the cold, damp climes of England for Sydney, Australia – his first semi-circulation of the globe. Now, forty years later, he still resides in Australia, although many intervening years were spent in a myriad of countries, some calm and safe, others no more than war zones.
Author’s Website: http://www.phillipstrang.com
Email; [email protected]
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PhillipStrangWriter/
The DCI Isaac Cook Thriller Series: Books 1 -3 Page 84